Cider mill

Milling, grinding, or crushing can take various forms, depending on the quantity of apples to be crushed and the mode of power available.

The earliest and most basic form of cider mill consists of little more than an enclosed area where apples are pounded by large wooden pestles.[7]

In England, Jersey, and northern France, the traditional form was a "horse-mill" or "stone mill". A horse-mill consists of a circular trough made of stone, in which is set either one or two large stone wheels called "runners".[8] At the center is a pivot point or "nut".[8] A horse is harnessed to the outside of the wheel, and driven in a circle, slowly grinding the apples to a pulpy mass called pommage.[8] Through the early 19th century, this was the dominant form in England.[8] By the early 20th century in Britain, however, the stone mills had largely fallen out of fashion, increasingly replaced by the roller mills, though they continued to be the primary form in France.[9][10] Though the stone mill had been introduced to and used by the American Colonists, its usage was not well recorded, and by the end of the 19th century it was essentially unknown in the United States.[10]

In Germany, apples were traditionally grated by hand rather than crushed.[11]

A later innovation was the toothed roller-mill. These mills use toothed cylinders made of stone or metal to grind the apples into pomace.[9] Such mills are portable, and produce a pomace that is finer than that of the large horse-mills.[8][9] It was first introduced to England in 1689 by agriculturalist John Worlidge, who adapted it from the sugar-cane crushers used in the West Indies.[12] Yet as of the beginning of the 19th-century, such mills could not handle the same quantity in bulk as the horse-driven mills.[8]

Basic methods of cider-milling

Pounding: Pounding apples in the Basque Country

Horse-driven stone mill: At the Faîs'sie d'Cidre 2009, Jersey

Roller mill: a roller-mill machine in France

After the apples have been ground into pomace, the pomace must be squeezed to extract the juice. This is done in a device called a cider press, which like the cider mill, takes various forms.[13]

One form is a large horse-operated lever press or screw press. This method was common in Britain, Jersey, and northern France, as well as the United States. This form involves either of two methods to hold the loose pomace in place as it is pressed. The first is to use alternating layers of straw and pomace, creating a mixture known as "cheese". The other is to wrap the pomace in cloth. The German tradition used smaller, hand-operated lever presses in the same manner.[11]

An alternate form is the "hand press" (sometimes called a "Continental Press" in England), a small screw-press operated by hand. These presses dispense with the various methods of covering the pomace, and instead use a container made of wooden staves.

By the turn of the 20th century, hydraulic presses had begun to be introduced.[14]

Basic methods of cider-pressing

Lever press: Cider pressing at the Faîs'sie d'Cidre in Jersey

Hand-press: Pressing at the Bauernmarkt, Lüttringhausen, Germany

Hydraulic press: A modern hydraulic press

After the juices had been extracted, the leftover pressings are variously known as "math", "cake", "powz", "mure" or simply "pommage".[15] It might either be watered and pressed again to produce a weak cider known as ciderkin, or when still fresh, used as animal feed.[15][16]

Apple pressings